Cuatro Altares with Alonso Del Río

Sunflower Sutras was given permission from curandero and Ayahuasquero Alonso Del Río, who is the Founder and Director of the Peruvian Center for Healing and Consciousness Studies, Ayahuasca Ayllu, to collaborate on filming one of his Four Altars Wachuma ceremonies. This is the first time that Alonso has allowed anyone to register any of his ceremonies, which are very special within the medicine world. They involve a very structured format of his own design which weaves his training in the Shipibo tradition with his studies on Inca and andean ancestral traditions, buddhist, hindu and other eastern traditions.

There is a lack of faithful and integral representations of Latin American indigenous sacred practices and traditions in amidst the West’s growing interests in entheogens. Hence, in collaborating with Alonso del Río on this film, we hope to bring more awareness to the ways in which sacred medicines should be approached and honored. 

The target audience for this documentary is people who are currently exploring or interested in exploring medicine work in its many forms: Through the use of sacred plant ceremonies or synthetic psychedelics, contemplative practices, ancient spiritual traditions, non-psychedelic altered states of consciousness and different forms of ritual. The documentary will explore how the Wachuma plant can assist in the healing and consciousness work of people from different backgrounds and ages, but also how the ceremony is constructed and held, and how Alonso’s map for the evolution of consciousness can help people in this journey.

We are aiming to create an informational yet deeply creative visual project, weaving together the profound indigenous knowledge depicted in the ceremony with the emotional journeys of the participants, accompanied by indigenous music and artwork to create a rich and moving portrayal of the sacred experience that a ceremony can create.